


Mirror Syndrome

by zulu



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M, for:usomitai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-12
Updated: 2009-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:08:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amber works her way in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Syndrome

**Author's Note:**

> Written for usomitai, for my [DRABBLERAMA: Road Trip Edition challenge](http://queenzulu.livejournal.com/407891.html). Thank you to for the beta.

**Mirror Syndrome**

Afterward, as Foreman's breath is slowing, and he's found the presence of mind to get rid of the condom and get the satisfied grin off his face, Amber curls up next to him and says, "Maybe it's better this way." She gives a shrug that's supposed to show that she, at least, can look on the bright side. "You _know_ House did the test. She had Huntington's."

Foreman wants to stare at her until she can see he's disgusted--well, no. He wants to _be_ disgusted. That would be the right thing to feel, when Amber casually comes up with a reason it's _better_ for Remy to be dead. The funeral was only this afternoon. Remy was nearly Amber's friend--Foreman knows they competed, too, and more than once Amber rolled her eyes at Remy's ingenue beauty, her wide-eyed air of mystery. Still, that's no reason to say she's _better off_ dead, that a bus crash is a better end than Huntington's. Foreman wants to argue for the sanctity of life, anyone's life, even a life that was going to be cut short anyway, after years of debilitating neurological and physical symptoms. He wants to, but he really can't.

"You're thinking of your mom, aren't you." Amber turns her head on the pillow. Foreman hears the movement and he knows she's watching him. Her look is almost like House's, curious enough to pick him apart, but it's different, too. She'd like to seem detached, but her interest comes with caring, and there's just the right mix of each that Foreman didn't kick her out of his apartment when she came bustling in, using the key he gave her only a few weeks ago.

Foreman inhales, holds his breath for a count of three, and then lets it escape again. He's on his back, hands behind his head, as if the ceiling's more fascinating than a colleague's death. If he stares long enough, then that's all it will be. Someone he knew, but not a friend. These things happen. We all have to move on. We did everything possible, but medically, there was nothing to be done. He ignores Amber's remark about his mother; he just lets it pass. He's not ready to tell her anything about his parents, and so far Amber's been satisfied with increasingly accurate guesses.

Amber shifts beside him, resting her cheek on her hands. He can feel the even draw of her breath against his triceps. Foreman would feel more comfortable if she'd go home, but he can't exactly push her out of bed naked. They haven't been going out long, and part of Foreman's brain is somehow still trying to make a good impression, as if Amber's a guest.

"Why did you come here?" he asks finally. Amber barged right into his apartment and practically attacked him, stripping him out of his suit and shedding her black dress faster than he could ask what the hell was going on. Foreman responded--Amber's always managed _that_, no matter how inappropriate the timing might be--but now he'd like to be left in peace, to think things out. To remember Remy.

"That was life-affirming sex," Amber says comfortably. She snuggles closer, until she's resting her head on his chest, her hair tickling his chin, her hand lying on his stomach just above the sheet. "It was also to stop your macho cave-man bullshit."

Foreman shifts under her, trying to see her face, but the angle's wrong. "What bullshit?"

"Oh, I'm so stoic, I have to deal with my emotions alone," Amber says, her voice carrying just enough sarcasm not to be completely flat. "That's pretty pathetic, Foreman."

"No," he says. "What's pathetic is that you think having sex reaffirms _life_." The two of them getting together has nothing to do with Remy living or dying; if anyone wants to feel guilty, or need to have his credentials as a human being corroborated, it's House, for thinking his diagnostics team is a taxi service.

"Hey," Amber says. "You never know who it's going to be. If I was crushed by a bus, I hope you'd go out and do something stupid in my memory."

"I'm not going to do something _stupid_ to--"

"And that's exactly your problem," Amber interrupts. "You could use it, Foreman. Be stupid once in a while." She pokes him in the stomach.

"Ow!" Foreman pushes her off him and half-sits, propped on his elbows, turning to glare at her. "Why the hell are you telling _me_ this? You didn't die, and Hadley wasn't exactly my confidante--"

Amber sits up, planting her hand on his sternum to fix him with a hard stare. "Erasing her already? She wasn't really a friend, just someone you worked with every day? Don't be so glib. And don't push me away."

Foreman rolls his eyes. It'd be easy enough to slide out of bed and pull his shorts on, order Amber out of his apartment. If he turns away, though, he'll be proving her right, and her little "Ha!" and victory gloating are not worth enduring. "I'm not. You're here," he says shortly, dropping down onto his back. He wouldn't have let her in if he'd known she wanted to talk it out.

"And you'd _better_ not give up on that trial," Amber says, settling down next to him again, but keeping up the damn _look_, as if he might crack if she trains her laser eyes on him long enough.

"What makes you think any of this is going to affect the trial?" Foreman asks, feeling sullen. Dr. Schaeffer offered it to him, and Foreman hadn't wanted the fight with House that would inevitably result from telling him Foreman wasn't going to be around as much to be his goddamn lapdog anymore. But Remy probably would've qualified. It might have helped.

"Oh, please," Amber says. "You knew, or you suspected, or House told you." Her voice takes on a girlish sing-song tone, as if she's teasing him from middle school. "Were you doing it all for her?" She lifts her head far enough to meet his eyes and adds, "You don't think the _other_ people in the world with Huntington's might deserve your attention?"

"House won't sign off on it," Foreman says dismissively. He's learned enough about getting his ideas shot down in the last year. He doesn't need more of the same from House.

"Don't ask," Amber says. "Just walk in and tell him." She offers a satisfied, Cheshire-cat grin of her own, and Foreman chuckles before he pulls her into a kiss. Amber never asks, and always seems to get her way. She walked right into _his_ life and made herself at home; there's no real way to kick her out once she's so palpably _there_. Foreman kisses Amber deeper, feels her smile up close, and thinks that, yeah. Maybe it's better this way.

 

_end_


End file.
